Music Business UK Q1 2021 – Preview Edition by musicbizworldwide

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Q1 2021

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In this issue... 12

Tony Harlow

Rebecca Allen

David Ventura & Tim Major

Sony Music Publishing

Sarah Lockhart

Sony Music Publishing

Kilo Jalloh & Moe Bah

5 Numbers You Need To Know

Raye Cosbert

Tom Gray

Geoff Taylor

Jo Hart

Warner Music UK

EMI Records

2K Management

Analysis

Metropolis Music

#BrokenRecord

BPI

Hart Media

BEN HOWARD

COLLECTIONS FROM THE WHITEOUT

O U T

O U T N O W

2 6

M A R C H

Contributors ADRIAN SYKES

ALEX ROBBINS

CLIFF FLUET

Adrian Sykes is a widely-respected UK music industry veteran, having made key contributions to the history of Island and MCA over the past four decades. He is also a successful entrepreneur and manager, having founded Decisive Management – which looked after Emeli Sandé before, and throughout, her multiplatinum debut album campaign.

Alex Robbins is an illustrator whose work has previously appeared on the likes of the New Yorker, Time Out, Wired, TIME and i-D. Oh, and Music Business UK. He has once again created our cover image based on a quote from our lead feature. This time, those words come from the Chief Executive of Warner Music UK, Tony Harlow.

Cliff Fluet is a partner within Lewis Silkin’s Creators, Makers and Innovators Division and founded its media practice. He previously worked at Warner Music and Capital Radio PLC. He is also Managing Director at Eleven, an advisory firm working with incumbents and insurgents in digital media and leading companies in the AI space.

EAMONN FORDE

PETER ROBINSON

RHIAN JONES

Eamonn Forde has been writing about all areas of the music business since 2001. He is Reports Editor at Music Ally and regularly writes for IQ, The Guardian, The Big Issue, Q and The Quietus among other titles. He completed his PhD at University of Westminster in 2001. His book, The Final Days of EMI: Selling The Pig, is out now via Omnibus Press.

Peter Robinson has been a music journalist for over 20 years, and keeps a keen eye on the global entertainment industry. Robinson has written for the likes of The Guardian, The Times, TIME, Noisey, i-D, Smash Hits, Q Magazine, Time Out, Attitude, Notion and The Telegraph, and runs his own must-read online publication over on Popjustice.

Rhian Jones is a respected freelance journalist who often focuses on the music industry. In addition to writing regularly for MBUK and Hits Daily Double, she is a Contributing Editor for Music Business Worldwide. In this issue, Jones interviews the brothers behind 2K Management, Kilo Jalloh and Moe Bah, plus Sarah Lockhart and three rising artist managers.

EDITOR’S LETTER I’ve been thinking of you in PVC. Call it the mania of pandemic lockdown, but recently I’ve taken to staring at my favourite artists on streaming services and contemplating the above phrase with an unbecoming smirk on my face. It’s a dumb joke, of course – Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) aka, in music biz lingo, vinyl. You’ve got to pass the time. At least I have a good business reason for such woeful wordplay. As you’ll learn on page 50 of this issue of Music Business UK, vinyl sales on a retail revenue basis overtook CD sales in the United States last year. This was a historic milestone – the first time vinyl had outranked CD in monetary terms in the world’s largest music market for over three decades. Despite this transference of power, the longrunning music biz temptation to rank CD and vinyl side-by-side is fast becoming outmoded. That’s because the CD now appears to have hit a terminal spiral, with UK retail sales of compact discs (in value terms) plummeting 28% YoY in 2020, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association. Meanwhile, according to new BPI statistics – which monitor the trade money paid to record labels/distributors by retailers – CD sales on a wholesale basis fell by £26.2 million in Blighty last year. Blame the pandemic all you want; that was actually a smaller YoY fall in trade CD sales than UK record labels saw in 2019 (-£35.0m). Those same BPI stats reveal that, right now, vinyl still brings in slightly less money for UK labels on an annual basis than CD (£115.6m vs. £86.5m in 2020). However, if the same increase/ decrease we saw in 2020 carries in 2021, then UK labels will earn more from vinyl than they will CD over the course of this year. Yes, I did just say it’s time for us to get out of the habit of comparing vinyl to CD sales... then immediately compare vinyl to CD sales.

Tim Ingham

“If the same trend carries in 2021, UK labels will earn more from vinyl this year than CD.”

But my point is about the future: it’s time to unshackle the industry view of vinyl from other physical formats, and instead consider its potential amongst a league of options to service big-spending ‘superfans’, alongside other D2C weapons such as merchandise, live-streaming, online ‘tipping’, VIP experiences and more. Vinyl is no longer a quirky industry story – it’s a fast-growing and seriously meaningful commercial category for the business. Case in point: at the rate the format is growing in the United States, I’d anticipate it will become a billion-dollar-a-year product in that market alone within the next half-decade. Back in the UK, the amount of wholesale revenue vinyl is banking industry-wide (£86.5m in 2020) is more than double the money labels are earning from ad-supported audio streaming, and nearly double the amount labels are earning from video streaming (aka: YouTube). Sadly, leaders in the independent music community tell me that there may be a dampening factor sitting in the way of vinyl’s potential growth: a lack of manufacturing options both in the US and Europe, which is causing long waiting times and unhealthy jostling for position across all sectors of the record business. In this context, it’s interesting to think about the masses of investment now flowing through to music catalog rights, a gold-rush in which there will be big winners, but also big losers amongst those who make bad bets with their money. That gold-rush is almost entirely being driven by predicted bounces in streaming revenues in the decade ahead. It appears to me that – despite the overhead and upfront risk it entails – an entirely different but no less impressive growth story in the world of vinyl is playing out. If the numbers keep rising, smart investor money (and a ramp-up in production) surely won’t be far behind.

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‘OUR PURPOSE IS TO MAKE CREATIVE GENIUSES GLOBAL SUPERSTARS’ Via Australia and New York, Tony Harlow now finds himself top of the tree at Warner Music UK. Here he tells of his journey so far and his leadership philosophy...

ondon-born Tony Harlow had no idea what would greet him on the other side of a one-way trip to Australia in 1997. But he knew he had to go, despite his slight apprehension, because of an abiding life philosophy: “When you’re sitting in a chair aged 60, what will you honestly think about this? Will you think: I was a bit of a dumb s**t not to take this opportunity?” This sentence tells us a lot about Tony Harlow. It tells us that he’s a straight-talker (as anyone in the industry who witnessed his performance being grilled by MPs in a DCMS Select Committee in January could attest). It tells us that he has an enduring sense of adventure, and a thirst for new challenges – one that’s taken him to living in Oz and New York City, as well as meeting one of his lifelong heroes, Miles Davis, at the apex of a Swiss mountain. And it tells us that he’s serious about living his life, especially his professional life, with conviction. Another of Harlow’s enduring philosophical principles, he tells Music Business UK, has held him in particularly good stead since he took over as CEO of Warner Music UK in February 2020: “Always ask yourself: Is this a big problem or a small problem?” It’s a simple enough query. But time and time again, it’s proven invaluable in helping Harlow successfully steer an array of businesses – from Richard Branson’s V2 label to Warner Music Australia, to Universal’s European merchandising unit, to WMG’s worldwide artist services division, WEA. Over the past 12 months, throughout the turbulence of a global pandemic and an ongoing racial reckoning, it’s been nothing short of a credo to live by. For Harlow, addressing the issue of diversity within Warner Music UK’s ranks was classified early on in the “big” category. He has set about tackling it with trademark straightforwardness, making a spate of important hires, and launching a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion program that puts tangible targets on, among other things, efforts to hire people of different backgrounds, gender and sexuality across all levels of the company. “We’ve made a lot of progress this year but there’s always more to do,” says Harlow. The exec’s experience of living and working in New York from 2016 to 2019 opened his eyes wider to societal injustices of which we would all do well to remain cognizant.

He says. “I remember a very senior executive on Julie [Greenwald’s] team at Atlantic [in the US], who I respect greatly, explaining to me why she dreaded her son going out in the car each night. She would say to him, ‘Don’t play your music too loud because they might pull you over, and if they do pull you over, make sure they can see your hands at all times.’ “I grew up in London in the [1970s]. It could be a rough town in those days, but when we were out as kids we never once thought that we wouldn’t be coming back the next day. That’s such an appalling reality for parents to send their child out into.” He adds: “All of this ultimately comes down to fairness. Terrible events over this past year have reminded us all that fairness is not a given, and we all need to work hard to make sure that it prevails.” Tony Harlow was brought up in 1970s West London. He doesn’t remember much recorded music playing in his childhood home until a lodger, who also happened to be an intern at Sony/ CBS, joined the fray. Harlow recalls, “[He] would bring records back and I would play them and tell him: ‘This one’s amazing. I don’t like this one.’ I remember Sly & The Family Stone, If You Want Me To Stay being in there. Then we started watching Top Of The Pops. That was it; the magic happened.” That magic would carry Harlow to become a regular amid London’s bustling live music scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, witnessing performances from the Cramps to the Cure, Aztec Camera, Gregory Isaacs, Tito Puente and Grandmaster Flash – not to mention the Smiths’ first ever gig in London, and Bob Marley at Crystal Palace Bowl. Harlow went to school in Hammersmith before going on to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. He admits he wasted too many student hours playing pool and listening to records, but ultimately walked away with a degree and that enduring piece of wisdom – “Is this a big problem or a small problem?” – in his back pocket. Returning to London, Harlow took a job as a counter-dweller at two Beggars Banquet stores owned by Martin Mills, in Putney and Kingston. “Beggars Banquet was brilliant because it was obviously an indie store – that’s what 4AD and Martin’s labels did – but they also brought in a lot of imports and sold tickets for lots of the important clubs,” he says.

“Ask yourself: Is this a big problem or a small problem?”

Photo: Ashley Verse

Dua Lipa performs live at the 2021 Grammys

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“We were getting in the first house records, all of that mid-’80s hip-hop; I remember when they brought in Public Enemy No.1 when no one [in the UK] had ever heard it. It was a brilliant way to find out about music.” During one shift, he noticed an ad in UK trade paper Music Week for a Jazz Buyer at HMV’s Oxford Circus store. Having fed a love for jazz during his first stint working in record retail – while regularly hitting clubs run by Gilles Peterson and Paul Murphy in London – this was a dream opportunity for Harlow, who got the gig. His next move, in 1988, was into Record Label Land, where he’s stayed ever since. Harlow took a job in marketing with jazz specialist Blue Note Records at EMI – then the world’s fourth biggest major record company – working under legendary Beatles expert Mike Heatley. After the cosy world of retail jazz buying, was Harlow’s entry into a major label, we ask, a baptism of fire? “It was more like the baptism of the back cupboard!” he jokes. “We were in the bit of the company no-one cared about, but because of CDs, we’d suddenly become interesting. I got to work with unbelievably brilliant people in America like [then Blue Note President] Bruce Lundvall, rest in peace, Michael Cuscuna, who was the expert on the reissue front, and Jim Fifield, who showed me what a real business brain was like. “I also got to meet a lot of jazz musicians, who to my mind are often the maddest but also the most incredible talents; guys who are really in it for the right reasons. Ultimately for them it’s all about stretching the boundaries of music.” It was during this period that Harlow lucked into an introduction to Miles Davis, at the mountaintop Montreux chalet of Claude Nobs, founder of the city’s famous Jazz Festival. “I met so many amazing, funny people with incredible stories during that time,” says Harlow. “It was a wild, unbelievable route into the music business, made all the more so because no one at EMI gave a shit what we were up to!” Still, Harlow’s own talent was spotted: he began handling international marketing for bigger catalogue hits – including Wilson Phillips and Roxette – before Jean-Francois Cecillon (aka JF), then boss of EMI Records UK, hired him as Marketing Director, working under Clive Black. Harlow’s tenure in this role coincided with the merger of Virgin Records into EMI via a $1 billion acquisition in the early nineties, which saw a flurry of staff changes happening around Harlow’s ears. After the merger, senior Virgin figure Charlie Dimont asked Harlow if he fancied becoming Managing Director of EMI in Australia. Harlow admits today: “It was a place I’d never been to, and never gave too much of a shit about unless we beat them at cricket.” But he took Dimont up on his offer, despite “not really knowing what he saw in me to do that job”. (Harlow says today,

having in lived in Oz for a total of 13 years, “Australia has become a place I love dearly – almost a second home.”) Having visualised himself as a glum, regretful 60-year-old should he refuse to make the leap to the Southern Hemisphere, Harlow landed in Australia in 1997 knowing nobody. His first mission at EMI was to bring a bit of Aussie pride back to the company’s domestic A&R strategy – even if that meant using crude tools to achieve it. His first masterstroke was pushing his uncertain staff to release The Best Beer Drinking Songs In The World... Ever!, packaged in jingoistic Aussie Green and Gold, featuring homegrown Oz/NZ talents like Divinyls, Aussie Crawl, Johnny Diesel and The Angels, alongside international talent. It sold over 400,000 copies. Next, Harlow formed a joint venture between EMI and Stephen ‘Pav’ Pavlovic’s Modular Records. It signed much-loved rockabilly punk band The Living End, and then The Avalanches for their breakthrough album Since I Left You (2000), which became a worldwide smash. “Everyone told me that [joint label] with Pav wouldn’t work, but I just knew he had good ears,” says Harlow. “Success in this business is so often about people, and Australians are the greatest people on earth to work with.” Direct signings at EMI Australia followed, including local country singer Kasey Chambers, who Harlow describes as “the most impactful singer I’ve ever encountered – we were so proud to get her totally authentic music to No.1 in pop. That changed how the company was seen.” Harlow left Australia in 2002, having agreed in principle to take a role heading international for EMI out of London. And yet, on the plane home, he saw that vision of himself aged 60 again. Something within him – a nagging philosophical inner-voice – told him it wasn’t the right move. “I informed [then EMI UK boss] David Munns that I didn’t want the job, and he was gracious about it,” says Harlow. “But essentially when I walked out of his office, I walked out of the music business.” Fate was about to intervene. Two days later, Harlow’s phone rang; it was Richard Branson, on the recommendation of exVirgin boss Ken Berry, asking if Harlow would come and run his flailing V2 label. “I didn’t realise what I was getting into, but I was grasping at straws, so I said yes,” says Harlow. Once again, trusting his gut proved to be a smart move. “Richard’s other shareholders at V2 were Morgan Stanley, and it was all a very interesting experience,” says Harlow, whose team enjoyed success at the label with artists such as Stereophonics (via David Steele) and The White Stripes (via Andy Gershon and Ian Montone). One of Harlow’s most impactful moves as V2 boss was to establish Co-Operative Music. In the UK, Co-Op pioneered the

“I didn’t realise what I was getting into, but I was grasping at straws, so I said yes.”

Photo: Jordan_Rossi

2021 Brit Award Rising Star winner (and Warner Records signing) Griff

in-house services at a ‘major’ partnering with independent record labels – and trusting those indie labels with transformationally handsome advances. Under Harlow and Vincent Clery-Melin, Co-Op helped labels such as Wichita, Transgressive and Moshi Moshi attain chart success that arguably would have been out of their reach without the firm’s backing. Harlow modestly says he nicked the idea for Co-Op from Emmanuel de Buretel’s DeLabel model: “I even pinched his guy, Vincent, to run Co-Op! EDB is one of the greats and I was lucky to work alongside him.” But others put Harlow’s launch of Co-Op in more trailblazing terms. Mark Bowen, the co-founder of Wichita, has said that Harlow and Co-Op “saved” his label’s business. Bowen has also called Harlow “the smartest brain in music”, adding: “I think he’s a genius – he understands the businesses stuff as much as the music stuff.” Co-Op is now owned by independent label group [PIAS], which acquired it from Universal Music Group around the time of UMG’s own acquisition of EMI Music in 2012. Harlow is proud to see Co-Op’s continued existence, run by “a really good mate of mine” in Jason Rackham, the MD of [PIAS] UK. After leaving V2, Harlow joined Universal Music Group in international marketing working for Max Hole. “Max is one of the greatest, an inspirational and brilliant person to learn from. But after a year I said: ‘I really don’t want to do this – I’ve been running businesses and I’d like to run a business again.’”

Lucian Grainge, Chairman & CEO of Universal, stepped in and offered Harlow the chance to join Tom Bennett at the helm of UMG’s fast-growing merchandise unit, Bravado. “I suppose I’m one of the few record people who has properly dipped into that merch world,” says Harlow. “Bravado was a great learning curve, especially as [merch] has only got more important to the record industry since then, but I wouldn’t say I was any good at it! I’m full of admiration for people like Barry Drinkwater and Tom Bennett – they’re street-smart, nimble and really clever. But [merch] requires a totally different mindset to copyrights.” In 2010, Lachie Rutherford at Warner Music came knocking. This time, Harlow was offered the opportunity to return to Australia as MD of Warner’s recorded music operation across Australasia. Harlow spent six more years in Oz, reporting to Warner Music Group’s theninternational boss, Stu Bergen, who has since credited the British exec with transforming WMG’s business in the region. Harlow’s successes during his reign as Warner Australasia boss included the breaking of Ed Sheeran, who has now sold more than 2 million records in the region. Says Harlow: “We knew Ed had what it takes to be big in Australia – a bit of larrikin spirit, a sense of humour and a proper ability to deliver live.” Through Sheeran, Harlow also cemented a friendship with legendary Aussie entrepreneur – and founder of Mushroom Group and Frontier Touring – Michael Gudinski. Gudinski sadly died earlier this year, aged 68, and was granted a state memorial in March. Harlow remembers him fondly.

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Photo: Rosie Matheson

Pa Salieu

Ashnikko

“Michael was a link to the real record business, when it was music-first,” says Harlow. “He was a force, an energy and he brought excitement. I realised after he passed that he [was in the habit of ] never saying goodbye – he’d just put the phone down or pass it to someone else. ‘Goodbye’ would have suggested he’d finished – but he never had. The next idea was always coming.” Adds Harlow: “Another legendary character was Denis Handlin, who I got to know through ARIA. He’s a world-class executive, who maybe doesn’t get the global recognition he deserves. Denis is a fierce competitor who doesn’t know how to be second. Fighting him was a real learning experience.” Harlow’s next challenge was a move to New York City in 2016 to become President of WEA, which offers Warner artists services such as streaming account management, direct-to-fan and merchandising operations, content creation, and financial management. “Running WEA wasn’t the obvious next choice, and I initially struggled with it as a next move, but the chance to work in New York outweighed the prospect of sitting on my arse doing a few more years of what I was already doing,” says Harlow. “It offered the prospect of an enriching learning experience.” Harlow admits moving to NYC full-time was something of a

culture shock – not only because of the switch from the vast open beaches of Australia, but also because his experiences of the Big Apple to this point had been rather more hedonistic. “I’d been going to New York since the early ‘80s, clubbing and partying; it had always been a place where you go to have a couple of meetings and a great time. But I soon learnt that New York does actually have a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. “It’s an intense, full-on place, and you’re right near all the big decisions. Yes, it can be hard, and definitely expensive, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.” As part of his duties at WEA, Harlow had to respond to issues with Direct Shot – a physical distribution company who also worked with Universal and Sony. Due to a backlog at Direct Shot, physical items, including vinyl, didn’t make it to stores in good time, costing indie labels and artists key sales around Record Store Day. Tegan & Sara, amongst other artists, publicly spoke out about Direct Shot’s failings. Says Harlow of the experience: “It was an extremely difficult situation that has affected many people across the industry, but what matters is how you handle it, and I’m proud of how the brilliant WEA team dealt with [the fallout]. “The essence in those situations is to be courteous and polite at

“I learnt that New York actually has a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.”

Maisie Peters

all times, to accept it’s caused people problems, and do your best to respond to that and help.” Harlow had set WEA on a route towards transformation, playing a key part in the integration of new assets in Songkick, UPROXX and EMP. Then, in 2019 Max Lousada – global head of WMG’s recorded music operation – offered his fellow Brit the chance to run Warner Music UK, starting in February 2020. Speaking about the moment he got the call, Harlow said: “When Max asked if I’d be interested in the UK job, I jumped at the opportunity. It really is my dream job. WMUK has always had a unique energy and spirit; on one hand it’s home to global superstars like Dua, Ed and Coldplay, and then on the other, it’s known for nurturing new and original talent. And we’re starting to see the world take notice of the next generation – artists like Ashnikko, Griff, Joel Corry, Pa Salieu and Maisie Peters. It also had a spiritual link to my old EMI days through the Parlophone label – which bought back old friends like Iron Maiden. We have so many special artists and brilliant young executives and, as a bonus, London is home and I’d been away a long time.” Harlow took the reins of WMUK from Lousada himself, and quickly made key hires including Austin Daboh as EVP, Atlantic Records, Rich Castillo as A&R Director, Atlantic Records, and Trenton Harrison-Lewis as SVP Artist and Label Development, ADA and WMUK. Notes Harlow of his switch from the US to the UK: “Partly by benefit of being closer to the [HQs] of the various digital

Ed Sheeran

services, the American industry is also closer to what’s happening in technology developments – and that’s such a critical part of the changes that are coming. It’s not just what the new tech enables, it’s what it means to music. I think of the way we’ve responded to the growth of UGC [user-generated content] and how important that’s become in breaking acts, and about the change in experience from ‘music plus’ to ‘plus music’ – by which I mean the shift from music as the primary focus of each experience, to those where it plays a supportive role to other activities. Those are examples where the US was moving way faster than the rest of the globe.” Harlow praises Lousada’s leadership of Warner on a global level. “One of the very few upsides of the current [lockdown] has been that I’ve probably got some extra hours with Max between 9am and 11am, before his phone starts exploding from the US,” says Harlow. “He’s a brilliant motivator, guider and ideator! “There is a new generation of executives coming through now, and I really believe that generation will be led forward by Max. He yearns for, and is really excited by, tomorrow’s music business. He’s building a place that proves why big record companies, whatever you want to call them, have a big future.” That future, of course, is regularly being called into question by those keen to erode the market share of major record companies – particularly those operating in a space that services independent artists. What makes Harlow confident that the majors will be able to hold their own in this shifting environment? “We have a very strong place in this business, so long as artists

Photo: Mark Surridge

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still want to be really big,” he says. “In order to be big, whether in your own country or worldwide, you need a reach and global infrastructure that allows creative talent to succeed everywhere. We offer that infrastructure and we add to that a wish to take risks and invest in growing acts to their full potential.” He adds: “There are more options for artists than ever now, which is great, and those options will lead to more change. But I don’t think we’ll lose our purpose, which is to make creative geniuses global superstars.” Another key topic for the UK business to tackle right now is the idea that it’s harder than ever for British artists to become globestraddling icons. The UK, in this regard, is slightly hamstrung by its size: every time streaming grows in another part of the world, the UK inevitably becomes a smaller contributor to the global record industry on the consumer side. Meanwhile, the US continues to dominate: in the IFPI’s ten biggest artists of 2020, picked on the basis of revenue generation, there were zero British artists. Nine were North American (including Canadians Justin Bieber, Drake and The Weeknd) and one was South Korean (BTS). Warner Music has its own crop of modern British superstars, of course – including Dua Lipa, whose Future Nostalgia was the tenth biggest-selling album globally last year. Harlow acknowledges that it’s “trickier for the UK to have the [global] impact it did before”, but he argues that the British market has “been able to survive those conditions brilliantly”. He adds: “The UK still has an advantage, because we operate in a language that many people speak as either their first or second tongue, and popular music tends to be based on Anglo/ American tradition. “The thing to focus on is making your artist proposition really robust and interesting to people around the world. It’s an attention economy and you need to give people a real reason to care.” We ask Harlow what he thinks Warner’s standout difference is as a major record company in 2021. He replies, without hesitation: “Thoughtfulness, compassion and focus.” “We really think about how and where we do business,” he continues. “We’re thoughtful and compassionate about the stresses artists face, and the stresses our own staff face. And we focus on picking the artists we believe will win, and on supporting them. We try to bring them approaches, ideas and opportunities they don’t get elsewhere – and to be as thoughtful and strategic as we can.” He adds: “I remember breaking my recorder when I was a child, and I had to hide in music lessons because it was never in tune. Then you start listening to Coltrane and stuff, and you realize the difference between what being talented, and being talentless, really means. “The artists and musicians we work with are awe-inspiring in what they do. It’s like, when you’re in my position, you’ve got to remember what real talent is, as opposed to being quite good at running a business.” n

‘Adding more bureaucracy won’t work out well.’ There is currently a healthy debate raging across the industry about whether streaming services should switch to a ‘user-centric’ payout model, and away from the current ‘pro rata’ model adopted by the likes of Spotify. In Warner’s submission to the DCMS Select Committee’s inquiry into streaming economics, Tony Harlow noted that Warner had conducted internal exploration of what the user-centric model would mean for the real-world payouts of streaming services. He wrote: “[The] user-centric model would not change the overall royalty pool and our analysis suggests that any changes in the allocation of payments to artists would not be significant.” Speaking to Music Business UK, Harlow said he has doubts not only over user-centric, but also over other suggested changes to the current streaming royalties model. He’s certainly no fan of the idea of a system that mirrors the “social and cultural deductions” taken by some European PROs when collecting money for publishers – deductions designed to support less popular areas of music such as classical and opera. “Both of those changes involved increasing administration,” says Harlow. “Personally, I’m a believer that bureaucracies spawn bureaucracies – and that bureaucracies eat a lot of nice lunches!” He adds: “I’m not a devotee of markets remaining completely unregulated, but I also know that if the opposite proposition means more bureaucracy it probably won’t work out very well. “This whole debate is mired in not moving the music industry forward. The figure to look at is how the total amounts paid out in royalties are growing every year thanks to the [streaming-led] revitalization. We should be focusing on getting the amount of total [streaming royalties] that you can distribute as high as possible.” Harlow says he hopes the DCMS committee will “clarify the difference between the record industry and the entire musical infrastructure”. He specifically wants to see positive moves around restricting safe harbour and secondary insurance for events post-lockdown and making it easier for UK musicians to travel after Brexit. “I understand it’s quite convenient to only look at one piece of the music industry [i.e. the record business] and say it should support everything else. But it’s not logical. And besides, to some extent we do it already; we are the principle investors and the principle risk takers – the engine in the car.”

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THERE’S TOO MUCH MUSIC. LET’S DEAL WITH IT. Peter Robinson, like all of us, is overwhelmed with the amount of new artists and tracks hitting streaming services. Somehow, he says, we have to slow the avalanche... Whichever way you look at it sixty thousand is a big number. It’s a good number, too, when you learn that 60,000 different acts now have over 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners. But not so good when you also consider that 60,000 is the number of songs being added to Spotify every 24 hours. Let’s stick with that last statistic. It’s a stat that means that every day, over 133 days’ worth of music appears. To put it another way, you could spend tomorrow listening to music from midnight to midnight, and you’d end the day with a 132-day backlog. Do the same from birth to the age of 80, and you’ll pop your clogs with an unheard playlist spanning ten millennia — about the same amount of time that’s passed since the extinction of ice age megafauna. I could continue, but I won’t because in the time you’ve been reading all this eighteen new songs have appeared. When did you first feel like music — something we can all agree is ‘quite good’ — was ever so slightly over-abundant? For me, the sheer amount of recorded music first became clear in the 1990s when I did work experience at a youth show called Vibe on BBC Radio 5 at a point when Radio 5 was still offering programming for teens and the BBC hadn’t yet decided, not for the last time, that the most sensible way forward for the corporation was definitely to offer less youth programming. I remember showing Richie Manic how to work a vending machine, hearing a strange rumour relating to one DJ’s toilet habits, and being dispatched to the Phoenix Festival (now vaguely remembered only as ‘the one with the riot’) with a reel-to-reel recorder to interview Frank Sidebottom. But largely I remember the cardboard box on the floor of the office, overflowing with hundreds of CDs. The fact that I was free to take any I liked? Music to my 15-year-old ears. Most of it was not very

“It’s never been easier to release music; it’s never been harder to get heard.”

good. Thinking about it now, this box probably contained the stuff that wasn’t even worth taking to flog on Berwick Street. Even so, even then, it seemed like a lot of music. Later when I started writing for Melody Maker I was occasionally given the prestigious job of ‘doing the singles’. This meant sifting through a filing cabinet stuffed with the week’s releases and accompanying press releases, and picking out the singles important, good or bad enough to write about. There’s nothing quite like seeing what ‘all’ music looks like, or hearing what it actually sounds like, to ruin the magic of pop. And that was in the days when barriers to entry meant that a lot of people making music had no option but to keep it to themselves. F Scott Fitzgerald once noted that with first rate intelligence it’s possible to hold two opposing ideas in mind while still being able to function, but I’m fairly thick and even I can accept that what’s great for artists is also terrible

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for artists. It’s never been easier to release music; it’s never been harder to get heard. But getting heard is so tantalisingly close, isn’t it? You’re in exactly the same place as Bad Bunny and Dua Lipa, in a way you’d never have been on the same Woolworths CD rack as the biggest hitters of years gone by. All it would take is one decent add on just one of hundreds of important playlists, or for precisely the right kind of user interaction to set off an opaque algorithm’s sirens and alarms. The fans you deserve are so close. But when there are 59,999 other songs swilling around in that day’s pop silo, those fans have never been further away. They say it’s the hope that kills you, but the bait and switch of the streaming era (‘get yourself heard, but don’t expect to get heard’) most reminds me of a former boss who once pulled me aside and sagely confided that his approach to dealing with upper management was this: “Promise them the moon on a stick, and when they ask you to deliver, reply: ‘What do you want from me, THE MOON ON A STICK???’” Anyway, we are where we are, and the longterm solution to this is as obvious as it is inevitable: the human race will simply have to evolve until infants emerge with a second set of ears plus a separate temporal lobe dedicated solely to listening to music. Until then, for decent artists to stand a chance of breaking through in a meaningful way, there need to be fewer decent artists. Making the job of being a musician seem less attractive will be hard work. As we know, all the usual red flags — terrible working conditions, zero job security, execrable pay for new starters, recognition rarely being linked to performance, mental health implications at every stage of the job regardless of whether you succeed or fail — haven’t dissuaded people from getting involved. Even the support of the Government, whose recent actions have made impressive headway in decimating huge swathes of the music industry, and whose commitment to having no commitment to arts education has already dampened the artistic ambitions of a generation, isn’t doing the trick. Somehow, musicians continue to emerge, as if making music is some sort of calling. This just won’t do. Step one, then, should be a round of voluntary redundancies with generous retraining packages for artists who’ve hit the point where they

Bad Bunny was Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020... pipping over 7 million other acts to the crown

“I’m not sure where nationalising Lewis Capaldi fits with all of this, but I like the sound of it, so let’s do that too.”

feel trapped in their careers. Roster quotas for managers and record labels will also be important here — no more ‘it’s not much good but let’s sign it and see what happens on TikTok’. I’m not sure where nationalising Lewis Capaldi fits in with all this but I like the sound of it so let’s do that too. Depending on the effectiveness of the above we will then move to the next step. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you can’t move right now for highbrow articles in places like the New York Times wanging on about songs getting shorter, or songs not having choruses any more, or songs only becoming popular through socials. Accelerating and combining each of these and taking it all to its logical conclusion, you’ll have songs that exist as blips of sound. It’s worth exploring. You might be worried about songs being reduced to mere jingles but I ask you this: is there not more art and nuance in ‘whoaaaHHHH Bodyform’ than in the entire BBC 6 Music playlist? Is the Netflix ‘ba-baaaaam’ not a better song than anything on the new Lana Del Rey album? If we can reduce the number of artists releasing a song each day to about 500, and if those artists each agree to trim their songs down to one minute, you or I could listen to every new release in a normal working day, as long as we work through lunch. None of this will ever happen because none of my incredible ideas ever happen, apart from when I suggested at the start of 2019 that a Billie Eilish Bond theme would be worth a listen. But what do you want from me, the moon on a stick?

KEY SONGS IN THE LIFE OF…

Rebecca Allen The President of the UK’s biggest label, EMI, talks us through the musical journey of her life and career, track by track...

t is extremely unlikely that Rebecca Allen has ever ‘chomped’ a cigar. Or thumped a table. It seems just as far-fetched that she might, on occasion, be a telephone screamer (behind the popular song). What she is, however, is the President of the biggest record label in the UK, EMI. And that says something not only about Allen’s skillset and track record but also, hopefully, about the industry – where it is, and where it wants to be. She is part of a new generation of supersenior execs who will bury the hoary old cliché of the hard-bitten, friend-killing label bosses of yesteryear, popular fiction and the public imagination. She is, make no mistake, ambitious and determined, and part of her agenda will be to retain EMI’s longstanding No. 1 market share. But, when asked about the pressure that comes with that, she says: “I’m aware of it, and being number one is obviously great, and obviously important. But I want the conversation to be about EMI as the number one company in terms of innovation, number one as a place to work, number one when it comes to being artistfriendly. I think the market share will flow from that.” Prior to EMI, Allen was President of Decca, a label at which she was destined to work, perhaps literally from day one, having been, as she speculates, “probably born listening to classical music”. Her mother sang in a choir, which her father conducted, she studied at a conservatoire and her first job was with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Actually, maybe not ‘with’, definitely not ‘in’, but certainly ‘at’.

Having specialised in the baroque recorder (“everyone pisses themselves laughing when I tell them that”), a career as a performer was perhaps never an option, and initially she assumed that the only alternative career in music was as a teacher. Then someone put her forward for a work experience role at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It involved nothing more than collating press clippings, but it was revelatory in that it opened up a world of opportunities away from the stage and classroom. “I started looking round, thinking I could make music my life, and my way in was as marketing and publicity assistant at the BBC Symphony Orchestra. I absolutely

it, but, crucially, it was where Allen met two mentors who changed her life. “Bill Holland is a wonderful, wonderful man. He was the boss at Universal Classics & Jazz, and he took me under his wing. He taught me about culture, not just in terms of artists, but of labels themselves having their own culture and identity. “He also taught me a lot about relationships, and that we’re nothing without the relationships that we build in this business, be that with artists or managers or lawyers or staff or your contemporaries. Everything that we do is about relationships and trust. “And then the other guy, who I thank everything for, is Dickon Stainer. He saw something in me that I would never have seen in myself. “It’s quite interesting when people talk about my ‘career path’, and the steps that led to being [a major label] President, because I never saw any of that coming, never plotted it, never planned it. “I just had Dickon almost sort of orchestrating it, spotting things in me that I didn’t spot and going, ‘Hey, Becks, what about you trying this?’ I’d try it, rise to it, and then he’d go, ‘Hey, Becks, what about this?’ I’d try it, rise to it, and so on, step by step. “We had amazing chemistry and formed this incredible team for 20 years. Dickon was always about empowerment, about empowering young people. I’ve seen him do it so many times, not just with myself. “He was also very liberal-minded. Both him and David Joseph, I have a lot to thank for, because they allowed me to be the best version of myself, which was a mother

“I never thought I’d do anything this huge – but here I am, and I’m loving it.” loved it, from the minute I started. And I’ll tell you why: because I was amongst musicians. “The orchestra would be rehearsing in one room, and we would be sat in the other room, basically doing admin work – I stuffed a lot of envelopes – but there was still a ‘wow factor’. I was part of the musicmaking process, I was just doing another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.” Her next big break was as press assistant at what was then called Universal Classics & Jazz. As big breaks go, this one did initially have a slight whiff of ‘Stuffing Envelopes In A Different Building’ about

PLAYLIST

with a career. When I was really starting to climb the ladder, I had two very young girls at home and I would’ve walked away from this career had I not had the flexibility that Dickon and David provided.” Allen was made President of Decca in 2017, becoming the first female label head within the Universal UK group. She says: “I’m obviously proud of that, but I didn’t think about it until it happened. It felt like a very natural progression for me, maybe because I’ve never faced sexism in the workplace. I’ve never felt discriminated against; I’ve just been very fortunate in that way. “But, when I did reach that point, that was when other women started coming forward and asking me about it, and that was pretty eye-opening, because it became clear that so many other women had not had the positive experiences I’d had “I started mentoring a lot at that point. I vowed to help young women on their journeys, along with Jo Charrington, who was made co-President of Capitol not long after me. We both wanted to play our part in getting the next generation of female leaders up and running.” That next generation could not help but be inspired by Allen’s achievements in running probably the two most famous labels in the history of recorded music in the UK. It’s an achievement she has trouble coming to terms with herself. “Decca is a label that celebrated its 90th birthday in 2019, and now here I am running an equally prestigious label… Honestly, to be able to say I ran both Decca and EMI, it blows my mind. “Of course it was hard to leave Decca, but actually, because of the pandemic, it felt like a good opportunity to try something new and to embrace change. It came at a good time and I think it sort of lifted last year for me. “I was quite nervous about taking on a company of this size, especially during a pandemic, not being able to meet people properly, but, honestly, it’s been the most phenomenal experience. “The last year or so has just been so exciting and thrilling and liberating. Lots of what I learned at Decca, I’ve been

1. Stevie Wonder, Stay Gold (1983)

2. putting into place here and doing it on a scale that I never thought imaginable.” She was especially delighted to discover that the two labels have more in common than she suspected. “Decca was family, we were in it together. I valued that so much and didn’t want to lose it by going to a much bigger company. But from day one, the thing that surprised me most was just how ‘family’ the team at EMI are. “They are all so close, they’re all so warm, and it was just the greatest feeling for me, leaving somewhere like Decca where I’d been most of my life, and still finding this feeling of familiarity and warmth and togetherness. There’s such a unity there and such a great spirit that Ted [Cockle, previous President] had built. “And thank goodness, because I never thought I’d do anything this huge, or run a label this big – but here I am, and I’m loving it.”

Stevie Wonder came into my life quite early. I must’ve been 10 or 11, and around that time there was an amazing film called The Outsiders [directed by Francis Ford Coppola]. I became obsessed with that film; I still cry at the end. There’s a piece of music that plays over that ending called Stay Gold, which I just could never get out of my head. It was written by Stevie Wonder and a guy called Carmine Coppola, who was Francis Ford Coppola’s father. It’s just such an incredible piece of music, and the lyrics are some of the best... I love lyrics; I’m obsessive about lyrics. So, this song, Stay Gold, which I discovered in the eighties, is to this day one of my favourite pieces of music. But the other great thing about it is that it got me into Stevie Wonder at a young age, because then you go on a journey, don’t you? Like, ‘Who wrote this? Let’s see what else he’s done...’ You start realising what an amazing arranger Stevie Wonder is, then you get into the way he produces music, and then there’s the sheer quality of his writing, the way he puts his songs together. The journey from classical music to Stevie really wasn’t too big a leap. I became fascinated by him; I still am. I also came so close to working with him. David Foster [famed producer and the former head of UMG’s Verve label] was doing a project where he was going to try and orchestrate [Wonder’s] work. And they’d both gone to Abbey Road to [begin that process]. I knew David, because we were working together, and so I went along, and I sat behind Stevie Wonder while this re-imagining of his greatest hits with a huge orchestra was happening. I didn’t speak to him, just kept staring at his back and telling myself not to reach out and touch him! Then, for some reason, the project never came to life; it just never happened. But nonetheless, I just had this love affair with him probably since I was 10, 11, 12 right through to now.

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2. Leftfield, Song of Life (1992) I came from a village, a mining village. And in 1992, at the age of 18, I left that village and came to live in London. And I have to say, moving to London in 1992 and grabbing everything that London had to throw at a student at that time, added up to some of the most hedonistic times and most euphoric moments of my life. And in that year, Song of Life by Leftfield came out. I met my husband when I was at college, and a new group of friends. During the day, we were studying Bach or Beethoven, and then at night we would go out to the clubs of London and listen to incredible DJs, incredible music and just have this, probably, 10 years of sheer fun. We’d go to Ministry of Sound and some of the bigger clubs like that, but we also loved lots of little clubs. It was definitely a lot of house music, and there was a lot of trance music going on – I was really into Sasha & Digweed and that whole sound. And I loved this guy called Brian Transeau, BT, as he was known. I loved him because, again, it was that word, euphoric. In fact, if you went to see him at a festival, he would have live strings playing; his music was almost cinematic. And I’m still kind of involved, because my husband manages DJs. He used to DJ himself when we were in our early twenties. We would go out and follow him wherever he was playing... which could be anywhere. It could be any little club – or it could be house parties or festivals. I mean, we did it all during those years. Couldn’t do it now, that’s for sure! For the majority of this year the most euphoric I’ve felt was when my daughter got a maths question right during our home-schooling sessions. Song of Life, that whole album, we probably listened to every night for five years while we were studying. I got to see Leftfield first in 1996, I think, at the Brixton Academy, although we perhaps saw them at some Tribal Gathering before then. Then I was lucky, in

2017, to go and see them again at Brixton. This song has stuck with me. It reminds me of my early years in London; it reminds of my friendship group that I still have to this day; it reminds me of meeting my husband, 25-plus years ago, at college. It was just an incredible time to be a student living in London. 3. The Chemical Brothers, Hey Boy Hey Girl (1999) It was very hard deciding which track of theirs to pick, because I’ve had a 20-plusyears long term relationship with The Chemical Brothers. I went back and forth between a few tracks, but I landed on Hey Boy Hey Girl. In 1999, when I first came across them, I’d actually just started at Universal – I was an 11-year-old intern, obviously! – and I was soaking up more music than ever before.

they tell stories visually. They provide a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. If you think about how kids consume music now, they were leaders in that world; they’ve been great at bringing their music to life for decades. In 2016 Aurora, who was signed to Decca, was performing at Glastonbury. Tom [Rowlands] went to see her and she was so amazing he became obsessed with her, like most people do when they see her, like I am in fact, and she ended up appearing on Eve Of Destruction on their No Geography album. All of a sudden, oh my God, I’m inching closer to their orbit! And then in 2020 I land the job at EMI, where the Chems are signed. One of my first calls was with their managers, I’ve been really engaged with them, I’m looking forward to putting new music out, and I just feel like there’s been a 20 year build up to this. It’s like you’ve had your eye on someone for so long and now you’re finally going on a date – no pressure! I haven’t met Tom and Ed [Simons] yet, and I’m worried I’ll be such a fangirl I won’t be able to speak to them [laughs]. I keep thinking about the bit in the Billie Eilish documentary where she meets Justin Bieber and she can’t actually go anywhere near him because she’s so overawed. In the end, she manages to hug him, but she can’t stop crying on him. And I can’t help thinking... [really laughs]. Can you imagine? ‘I’ve loved you for 20 years! I can’t believe I get to work with you!’. One thing’s for sure, if I’d told my 25-year-old self I’d be running their record label one day, I wouldn’t have believed it for a second.

“The Hey Boy Hey Girl moment was at Glastonbury, 2007, when my husband proposed.” At the same time, we were going to bars, clubs and festivals all the time, and I think I probably first saw [the Chemical Brothers] at the Homelands Festival. But really it was the Surrender album that entered the lives of me and my friends. I played that record non-stop and just soaked it up. The Hey Boy Hey Girl moment was at Glastonbury in 2007 when my husbandto-be proposed to me. He got down on one knee and we were suddenly engaged! I was in shock, and off we went to see the Chems perform. And then I remember them playing Hey Boy Hey Girl, I was jumping around and life felt pretty good! One of the things I’ve always loved about them, and something that I take into what I’m doing now, is the way

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4. Kacey Musgraves, Silver Lining (2013) Choosing these tracks was so hard, because I love so much music and listen to so much music and have worked with so many incredible artists. But the reason I’ve included this track really goes back to

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A&R IS FACING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS IN 2021 Eamonn Forde asks: How can the UK’s leading artist and repertoire execs possibly hope to tame – or get ahead of – viral hits in the modern era? Knock, knock. Who’s there? Sea Shanty TikTok. Sea Shanty TikTok who? That’s show business! Before we start, this is not intended as a coup de grâce on Nathan Evans, or a scuttling of his music ambitions. It’s an attack on the false wind of public interest filling his sails but which instead turn out to be sirens luring him at speed towards the sharp rocks of public indifference. This is about the stinging spindrift of social (media) chatter and how everything is made instantly disposable, even A&R. Evans became the poster boy for what quickly and crassly became known as Sea Shanty TikTok. He began uploading sea shanties to TikTok in July 2020 (sitting cheek by jowl with covers of Hanson, George Ezra and Ellie Goulding hits). These, it is important to remember, were sincere recordings, not the work of some bewhiskered and be-bobblehatted hipster in Dalston or Peckham temporarily swapping their ironic penny-farthing for an equally ironic schooner. Then Evans’s version of The Wellerman on TikTok – which had been on a low simmer since it was posted in late December – went viral in early January. In the space of a few weeks he got a deal with Polydor Records, he quit his job as a postman in Airdrie in Scotland and his recording of The Wellerman roared into the UK charts. It bobbed around the top three for several weeks. He seems an agreeable sort of chap and it is all a heartwarming tale of how a hit can come from nowhere. Who wouldn’t want a record deal if one magically appeared in front of you and then, mere days later, you’re in the top five? It’s the kind of thing that many musicians dream of and hope could someday happen to them. But, as with everything, it’s the hope that really kills you.

“It was at this precise moment that it started to curdle into novelty single terrain.”

The warning signs against any chance of a lengthy career here were not good. Evans and sea shanties were suddenly everywhere as newspapers and websites fattened up their coverage of this new ‘craze’ – like it was the next hula-hoop, Cabbage Patch Kid or fidget spinner. They were full of click-thirsty explainer stories on: (a) what sea shanties are; and (b) what TikTok is. A galumphing EDM remix was quickly created to amplify the lead track. It was at this precise moment that it started to curdle into novelty single terrain, revealing how sincerity is the first casualty in the desperate lurch towards meme-ification. Brian May (a man who does not know when to stop flogging a dead horse) has joined in. Evans has been on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. The song has gone to No. 1 in Germany. But, like all memes, what seems like a springboard into the future is actually jailing everything in the past. It’s almost impossible

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David Ventura and Tim Major

‘WE ALWAYS PUT THE SONGWRITER AT THE CENTRE OF EVERYTHING WE DO – GLOBALLY’ It’s a new era for Sony Music Publishing, with a global rebrand from the historic Sony/ATV name. Here, in a special feature, the leaders of Sony Music Publishing UK – followed by the firm’s Head of A&R – explain why the name change is symptomatic of a wider transformation...

ony’s music and entertainment companies have never looked more united. You can see examples of this ‘One Sony’ philosophy increasingly cropping up in various projects – not least those in which Sony Music Publishing plays an instrumental role. It’s something of which Sony Music Publishing’s UK Co-Managing Directors, David Ventura and Tim Major, are understandably proud, and something they see as a strong USP when trying to sign songwriters. Evidence of ‘One Sony’ at work in

the past 18 months has included the soundtrack to the video game HyperBrawl Tournament. Written and created by celebrated British producer, Steve Levine, the OST is published by Sony Music Publishing and commercially released by Sony Music's Masterworks. Indeed, Sony Music Publishing’s recent rebrand (from former name Sony/ ATV) is in itself an indication of a more integrated entertainment network at Sony – a family which now includes Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing, Sony PlayStation and other creative

divisions of the company. For Sony’s songwriters, there’s plenty of good stuff being cooked up by a new-look Sony Music Publishing UK, where Ventura (President & Co-MD) and Major (Co-MD) took up the reins in May 2019, shortly after Jon Platt was named Chairman & CEO of Sony Music Publishing worldwide. Over the past 18 months, Ventura and Major have re-sculpted Sony Music Publishing UK’s key divisions, including A&R, where Sarah Lockhart now runs a team of 12 overseeing domestic talent signing and development.

FEATURE

This refresh of UK A&R has had a clear impact at Sony Music Publishing, where recent new signings include Emmy winner (and Grammy nominee) Labrinth, plus KOLIDESCOPES, the co-writers and coproducers of one of the hits of 2020 – Joel Corry x MNEK’s Head & Heart. Other recent signings with big futures include BBC Sound Of... 2021 winner Pa Salieu, plus Arlo Parks (with Young Turks) and Beabadoobee. These writers join a stellar existing lineup of British talent including everyone from Ed Sheeran to Skepta, Sade, TMS, and Gorillaz, who recently re-upped with Sony Music Publishing UK for a new term. Elsewhere, Ventura and Major have re-jigged Sony’s successful Sync team, promoting Sarah Pickering, aka Pixie, to VP of Creative, and Chris Jones to VP of Licensing, with the duo acting as co-heads of the division. And they’ve hired ex-Wixen specialist Naomi Asher to head a new UK neighbouring rights division. There’s also been something of an admin transformation for Sony-signed writers, led by Jon Platt and his team out of the US, including the launch of real-time inter-company processing for all foreign earnings, plus ‘Cash Out’ – which enables Sony songwriters to request some or all of their current royalty balance to be paid immediately. Here, Ventura and Major reflect on their first full year in charge at Sony Music Publishing UK – and the (hopefully) oncein-a-lifetime lockdown circumstances they’ve had to navigate...

This is the affirmation of the legacy of Sony. You look at the history with the Walkman, the Discman; this is a creative entertainment company, with a solid foundation of technology. Today, we have Sony Music, Sony Music Publishing, Sony Pictures, Sony Entertainment, Sony PlayStation... any writers or artists signed to Sony will feel that, and will be able to benefit from the wider Sony ecosystem. You’re talking about ‘One Sony’. How much does that affect you in reality running the publishing company? Tim Major: We are very intentional about [One Sony] and making the most of this unique ecosystem. The name change brings us more in line with the other Sony brands; that becomes more recognisable.

Pickering and Chris Jones to run creative and licensing [respectively]: Pixie is about ideas, meeting songwriters and pitching, and Chris leads the deal-making process. Our sync numbers have been on target [in the past year] even though we’ve been hit by COVID, so that's a pretty incredible achievement. And Tim hired Naomi Asher, which has been a real game-changer. Tim: Since Naomi came in we’ve already seen real growth in our neighbouring rights business, and an improvement to the service that we’re providing. She’s super knowledgeable; she set up IAFAR, she's very dynamic and she’s been a real asset. Where else has your focus been concentrated? David: We have really undertaken a revolution on the admin side, introducing Cash Out and live accounting. Previously, a writer would have waited 12 months or even more to see royalties from another territory due to delays. Now, the second a penny hits an account in Bulgaria or Australia, a Sony Music Publishing songwriter will be [notified of ] that money. It’s been an absolute game-changer, especially with the pandemic. We’re also extremely involved with diversity; what happened in the US last year was a trigger for change and as leaders, not doing anything is unacceptable. Sony raised a fund of $100 million, and [in the UK] we have been investing in and supporting a few associations, as well as launching our Diversity Committee. It’s a constant, ongoing process because we all have to be better and strive to reflect the world around us.

“We want an A&R team that reflects every single genre, every single taste.”

What does the rebrand to Sony Music Publishing UK reflect? David Ventura: It’s the evolution of the company, and a new chapter. With 25 years since Sony ATV [was born], this marks the ongoing transformation of the business. Since Jon [Platt] has joined, we’ve taken an approach of a modern and energised music publisher with things like Cash Out, with live accounting, and [new] deals with DSPs. It is a perfect time for us to do this relaunch.

The Hyperbrawl Tournament project is a good example of Sony Music and Sony Music Publishing coming together and really leveraging what we have for the benefit of our writers and for the benefit of the creators within the company. In The UK specifically, you’ve both been running things for over a year and a half. What are the headline changes you've been making? David: As soon as Jon told us he wanted us to take over in the UK, we decided to assess every single department. We employed Sarah Lockhart to run A&R for the UK company and she’s been doing an incredible job. She’s a natural leader and I love her background of running Rinse FM, because I also have a media/radio background; I used to work for NRJ in France for seven years. That hire [of Lockhart] was part of re-energising the company with the right culture and energy. Then we changed the sync team as well, promoting Sarah

David mentions the disruption of the pandemic lockdown. How has Sony Music Publishing’s team responded to that? Tim: Amazingly. The day that the pandemic became a reality, like everyone, we all got a bit of a shock – I was definitely hoping that [lockdown] wasn't going to be as long as it has been. We were suddenly working from home, and the teams adapted so

Beabadoobee

quickly. We didn’t have any hiccups in our accounting; we didn’t have any hiccups in our administration. The A&R team have been busier than ever. Business hasn’t dropped and it hasn’t stopped. We’re really proud of the team. What changes did you want to make in A&R and how does that fit into the UK’s role in the wider world as an exporter of talent? David: Do you want the French person to answer that [laughs]? When I first joined [EMI Music Publishing in London from NRJ in France], I was intrigued by how the

UK looked so much at the UK. I was this French guy who was used to being in France and surrounded by Spain, Italy or Germany. Today, I think the UK has opened up so much more to the world, and that fits with us at Sony Music Publishing because we look at A&R through a global lens. Also, we want an A&R team which reflects every single genre, every single taste. We don't just focus on what’s in front of us or just on one country. We have a lot of ambition for songwriters. For example, we signed KOLIDESCOPES at the end of last year, who co-wrote Head & Heart by Joel Corry & MNEK, and that song has

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reached Top 40 [radio] in the US, when originally some might not have believed that was possible. How does Sony Music Publishing differentiate itself in the UK market from any other publisher? Tim: We always put the songwriter at the centre of everything we do – globally. We have what we feel is an incredible creative team in the UK, but we also have a global approach to A&R, with access to our creative teams around the world. We’re ahead of the game on administration, and we have simply incredible sync teams

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‘You’re going to reinvent the wheel? The wheel’s round for a reason’

In MBUK’s latest feature as part of a partnership with the fantastic Did Ya Know? podcast, Decisive Management co-founder Adrian Sykes talks to Raye Cosbert, a legend of the UK live sector, and a truly pioneering Black British executive…

INTERVIEW

aye Cosbert has promoted gigs by Coldplay in pubs, Eminem in clubs and Massive Attack in Irish dancehalls. The MD of Metropolis Music also promoted Robbie Williams’ recordbreaking three consecutive shows at Knebworth (to a total of nearly 400,000 people) in 2003. He is, quite rightly, proud of them all, and counts Robbie’s run as a career highlight. But, he admits, there’s something about being in at the start of a journey that begins in a basement in London, and ends in a stadium in South America… He says: “If you work with a band, start from the bottom like that, there’s just nothing like it, it’s a great feeling.” It’s a feeling that informs his answer when asked about the legacy he’d like to leave: “I want to be remembered as a promoter that helped talent develop, that added value. I want to have brought along something that helped bands grow and aspire to a better level.” As his conversation with MBUK shows, that goal, and much else, has already been achieved…

making a career from something that you like... the two things just didn’t connect. When did you start promoting? Like most promoters I started as an event organizer for my student union. So, I would put on shows, hire venues – I remember doing a show at [legendary Soho venue] the Wag club. That was my first foray into promoting – and where I started to learn what a hard business it is. When I left college, I was helping friends’ bands out, getting them gigs. But I was also working for a fashion company. I was doing the odd bit of promotion, but once again, I didn’t see the path into how I could make a living out of it; that wasn’t clear to me at that point. So, what was the point that you actually thought, I can make this my life? It was one of those chance meetings, to be honest with you. I was doing a club at the Borderline, called Backstage,

the bottom, because we had a basement in the Holloway Road, that was our office. There were three of us, we did everything: we did the booking, we did the ticketing, we did the production – so the booking of crews, the booking of PAs, etc. – and then driving around the country and repping the shows ourselves as well. It was a real DIY time. You talk about Bob as someone who was an early influence in your career. Were there any other people that played a big part in driving you forward in those formative years? I could see people like Lincoln [Elias] on the inside, who was working his way up the ladder. And Darcus [Beese], obviously. But I can’t think of anybody specifically where I was saying, ‘I want to be that guy.’ Because, I’ve got to be honest with you, there were no real role models as a young black man coming into it. I just wanted to learn my profession, learn from Bob, learn as I went along and develop as best I could. Once again, this is coming from a point of thinking, there’s no way I could do this for a living, but now I actually have got the chance to do it for a living. So I’ve got to learn how to do it properly. That’s the ethos I went with.

“It’s quite nice to be in the room, to get invited to record company planning meetings.”

I want to start off by asking you a very simple question: why music? For many African and Caribbean folk, you grow up with a lot of music around you. It’s part of your family, your social gatherings. I always had music in my life. But I never thought I could make a career of it. Most of my family are Guyanese and my mother just couldn’t understand why you would want a career in music, because you should be a lawyer, you should be a doctor. You go to work properly dressed, not in trainers and jeans. I don’t think it was a calling. I just came into it and it evolved, because I think like a lot of kids growing up at that time, in the late seventies and early eighties, it was hard to see how you could make a career in music. Especially because the music I liked was a lot of soul, a lot of reggae, it was very much fringe music; it wasn’t as much a part of the mainstream as it is now. So, the idea of

which was a fortnightly jam session for musicians. [Metropolis founder] Bob Angus came down there one night and we just got talking. He told me what he did and said, ‘Have you ever thought about doing this professionally?’ I thought, well if I can get my foot in the door… So I said, ‘Yeah, let’s give it a go,’ and that’s kind of how my whole journey within Metropolis started. What was the reaction of the Cosbert elders when their son came in and told them he was going to venture to the music business? My mom kissed her the teeth and walked back into the kitchen to carry on cooking roti, but my brothers and sisters were all very supportive And it was literally a case of starting at

Did you get any kind of words of advice that you found useful as you started your career walking into it? Yeah, it’s funny, the one I’ll always remember very early in my career was when I met a booking agent called John Giddings. I don’t remember what I was complaining about, but his words summed up the promoting business for me: ‘If you want loyalty, get a dog.’ And, ridiculous as that sounds, it’s very true, because it’s one part of the music business where loyalty doesn’t count for much at the end of the day. It’s 1990, you’ve started working for Metropolis. Now you’re working for a company, even though it’s a small company, what were the differences that

Robbie Williams’ record-breaking Knebworth show in 2003

from being a lone wolf to working with a team? Did it come as a shock? It did come as shock. I realised there were certain things that I wasn’t doing, there was a lot that I needed to learn very quickly. A lot of people attach glamour to the music business, but it’s worth remembering, it’s the music business. I had to tighten up on the business side of it and understand what service we were providing. It’s not all glam parties, there’s a lot of nitty gritty, a lot of homework you need to do. And you need to get the basics right. That’s one thing I learned. When you’re looking at the live acts that you want to promote through Metropolis, what rules your thinking, art or business? It’s a mixture of both. You’ve got to have good songs, that’s the building block of the whole thing. Then you think, How can I add value to that amazing talent that I’m watching? How can I make it grow? And, like all these things, you see an

artist and you’ll just think, You know what, I like that, I can get behind it. And I’ve got a plan on how I can make the numbers grow and get them more fans. But, yeah, it all starts with their talent. Has there ever been a time when the heart, the love of the music, has overtaken the business sense of what you’re doing? Sometimes you do get a passion for a band that you truly believe in, and you really think that they should be successful. And sometimes it just doesn’t happen. But if you don’t try, you don’t know. There’s no point in thinking that it won’t work. You’ve got to believe. Any time I’m booking a show, I’m presuming it’s going to sell out. I don’t think they’re only going to do 60 or 70%; that’s no good for anybody. You started out at the bottom, you’re now MD, can you tell us about some of the roles you had along the way, what it’s like in the world of a promoter? There’s a number of different hats you

have to wear within all of this. Primarily, when you book a band from a live agent, that requires your judgment in terms of, what business do you think a band is going to do? How many tickets are they going to sell? And you work out the numbers according to that. And then you make an offer for the band in terms of what you think you could pay them based on those numbers. Thereafter, you have to get into, how am I going to market this show? Now I’ve paid for it, now I’ve booked the artist, how am I going to market the show? And that’s where the skills of your sales and promotion come in, how you link with the record company, what the band are doing and what music is coming out. There are a lot of timings that go with it basically. It’s all about trying to operate at the top of the curve all the time, to make sure that all the bits meld. I then have to work on the production of the show and what the show’s going to look like. That means working with the tour manager and production manager –

INTERVIEW

Photo: Michael Walter/Alamy

Eminem live at the Astoria in 1999

and making sure that the costs of building the show fit within the cost you imagined, trying not to go over budget. And, all things being well, you sell enough tickets, all the marketing works, all production looks great, and then you open the doors and you have a great show. That’s the easiest way of describing it without putting too much nuance on it.

would refuse to talk to their promoter, let’s put it that way. How do you see that relationship and your influence as having changed

But as record sales declined and ticket sales got going, live moved up the agenda. Nowadays, it’s right at the top, basically, in terms of how we are going to fit the live program into the marketing of a record and the marketing of an artist. Before, we were left to our own devices. Now, it’s quite nice to be in the room, to get invited to record company planning meetings, which in the old days didn’t really happen. I think it was the late nineties/early noughties when I started to notice that change in record companies, taking a bit more interest in live and the revenue it could bring in. And, to be fair, to a degree, obviously the record companies have invested in that artist, and they’re thinking, well it’s another income stream which we didn’t really want a part of, but now we do. It’s a way of getting some of their investment back, and it encroached on our area, but in some ways we were thankful for it, because it means that everybody’s

“I was always mistaken for security, which annoyed me a great deal.”

And what is the relationship between the promoter and the act in terms of career development? Well, there’s this key person in the middle here, and that’s the band’s booking agent. The agent very much acts as the bridge between the promoter and the management/artists. But I find that good managers and good artists always have a good working relationship with you, because at the end of the day, I hate to say it, but we are paying for their services, and we’re providing an income stream. I’ve never worked with a band that

since you started in the business? How important is the live promoter and agent in the current model of the artist? From when I started to now, things have flipped completely on their head. You remember this from back in the day: when you put in a record out, you’d have radio, you’d have TV, you’d have any other business. Oh, and P.S. live – right at the bottom.

Photo: Tom Sheehan

Coldplay pictured in Barcelona in 2000

working together for the same goal rather than dropping the ball halfway through. We all see the journey right to the end now.

that’s when it all kind of just went, Right, okay, now you’re the boss. Thank you very much.

We should talk a bit more about your career and your path to the big job, Raye. Tell us about your journey to get there. I think the journey hasn’t really been a difficult one. It’s just been a progression of things happening over years; it’s about sticking in there and being part of the plan going forward. As the company expanded, obviously, because it started with three, me, Bob and Paul [Hutton], I just stuck with it, because I enjoyed what I was doing so much. There are so many ups and downs, but as I learned more about the business and my experience got better, you want to be a bit more entrepreneurial, you learn more about what you’re doing. It came to point a few years ago when the big boys came knocking on the door, Live Nation saying that they wanted to purchase the company [in 2017], and

What you’ve achieved, which is incredible, has been wonderful to view from the outside, for a lot of people. Did you ever believe when you started that the top chair was going to be possible for you? Was it something that you wanted? I wouldn’t say it was something I wanted. Was it achievable? I’d say all things are achievable if you put your mind to it. But, no, I never thought I’d be in a position I’m in now. There weren’t many people of colour in my position, which kind of made me feel there’s got to be a point where I’m just going to fall off the radar. But I think my perseverance, to keep working with bands, building bands, having successful acts, working with acts from [the] bottom, like Massive Attack, like Eminem, watching their careers grow, you grow with it; it rubs off on you. The lesson which comes from that is

PREVIEW ENDS

that if you truly believe in something, stick with it. Even though you’re going to be at the bottom of the trough sometimes. And believe me, I’ve been at the bottom of the trough sometimes, after a gig where you’ve lost money, and you’ve just thought, Why am I getting up in the morning and doing this? [laughs]. Starting out as a young black man in this business, did you find that there were any challenges that you faced that were brand new to you? As a six foot four, rather large chap, I was always mistaken for security, which annoyed me a great deal. You find that people don’t look you in a balanced way, they make judgements, and that’s when the microaggressions come in. But, after a little while you realise it’s not going to stop you doing what you do. Many times when I was touring around the country, I’d get a lot of microaggressions from people, but I was just like, well, if you’ve got issues with me on that level,

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Every Picture Tells A Story

Date: Early eighties Location: London It was the early eighties and I had fallen in love with a beautiful girl from Texas called Barbara. As I was a senior executive at Warner Chappell Music Publishing at the time (I went on to become Managing Director shortly afterwards), I thought I would try and charm her by inviting her to my swanky music industry office. So along she came to meet me, and we were chatting away when there was a knock on the door. I shouted, ‘Come in!’, and in walked Robert Plant. I’ve always liked to have the best hi-fi equipment to listen to music on and at the time my office had all the latest kit with amazing speakers – JBL studio monitors, Tannoy Golds, all being driven at the same time. Robert stood in the doorway brandishing a vinyl test pressing of his new solo album The Principle of Moments and asked if he could listen to it on my sound system. I was so besotted with Barbara and

desperate to impress her that I said rather dismissively, ‘Sure, if you could just wait outside for 10 minutes, I’ll come and grab you.’ Looking slightly bemused, Robert, because he is so polite, said ‘sure’ and took a seat outside the door. Barbara, who was a massive Led Zeppelin fan, sat there speechless, amazed that I’d brushed off a proper rock god to continue talking to her. It worked though – we’ve been married for over 30 years now. And Robert eventually came in, we listened to the album, which was brilliant, and he forgave me! Robin Godfrey-Cass is Managing Director of Round Hill Carlin UK. He became the youngest ever appointed MD of a major publisher in 1985 when, at age 30, he was named Managing Director of Warner Chappell Music UK. He was responsible for the worldwide signings of Eric Clapton and Radiohead, amongst many others.

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